


Misdirection

by FrenchTwistResistance



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 22:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18678865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance
Summary: Hilda behaves a certain way around Mary Wardwell, and Mary has noticed.





	Misdirection

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Mary Wardwell’s voice echoes menacingly against the wood paneling, bounces and then blunts as it falls on an expensive, ancient rug. The sound dies a concise, comfortable death. Loud and then soft and barely a memory of itself.

The mortuary is quiet and still before this piercing, vital, aggressive thing. Everyone is in bed. Except for Hilda who is working on a particularly intricate needlepoint in the parlor while she listens to Jo Stafford on the record player. 

Hilda doesn’t drop a stitch, doesn’t look up. She ties off the section she’s working on, says a beat after the sound has finished sounding, been muted, been therefore distorted because of its status as merely memory,

“Noticed what, love?”

Mary Wardwell, who has been standing in the hallway draped luxuriously on the doorjamb, now proceeds through the living room, stands in front of Hilda as she says,

“Your physicality.”

Lightning flashes outside, and Hilda’s eyes raise to meet Mary’s.

“And what about it?” Hilda says. She touches the end of a cerulean thread to the tip of her tongue, threads her needle blindly and effortlessly as she’s still staring into Mary’s unblinking eyes.

Hilda isn’t pretending to be unbothered by Mary’s unannounced intrusion into her private space. In fact, she’s expected it for some time now. She’s kept the door unlocked for just such an occasion. 

Hilda knows Mary’s someone she hasn’t yet purported to be, and Hilda knows Mary’s just itching to let something slip, and Hilda knows that something will show itself sooner or later, and Hilda figures she might as well be the one to face it head on.

Mary watches Hilda as her needle precisely penetrates the fabric.

“You don’t do anything halfway,” Mary says.

“What would be the point in that?” Hilda says.

“And so,” Mary says, “every time we’ve been in proximity, you’ve taken it upon yourself to collide with me. Push me. Shove me. But subtly.”

Mary says it as a statement but means it as an open question. Hilda continues focusing on her needlepoint, is deliberately obtuse as she says,

“Maybe so.”

Mary huffs as she swipes the embroidery out of Hilda’s grasp with one hand and uses the other to cup Hilda’s chin and position her head. She thrusts her own face closer to Hilda’s face to say,

“What do you want from me, Spellman?”

Hilda considers, feels the strong fingers on her chin, sees the strange eyes boring into her eyes, decides, says,

“Just what I deserve, Wardwell.”

Mary’s fingers clench at Hilda’s jaw, but she laughs, says,

“And what is that?”

“If you don’t know, I’ve underestimated you,” Hilda says. Mary laughs again, says,

“Maybe I’ve underestimated you instead.”

“Most people do,” Hilda says as she wrenches her face from Mary’s grip and bends to gather up her embroidery. But Mary grabs her firmly but not painfully by her hair, hoists her head gently up so they’re again looking at each other.

“I’m not most people,” Mary says quietly. Too quietly.

“Indeed,” Hilda says. “Prove it.”

They continue staring at each other. Hilda brings a hand up to cover Mary’s at her own scalp. Hilda laces their fingers together through strands of blonde hair and squeezes. Mary tugs, and Hilda’s entangled hand is complicit. Mary says,

“I’m not the kind of woman who feels compelled to prove anything to anyone.” At this she clenches her fist against a particularly sensitive cranial plate, and Hilda moans involuntarily. Hilda’s eyes are still shut in ecstasy as she says,

“And yet, here you are. Trying so desperately to prove yourself to me, a common kitchen witch.” Mary’s other hand suddenly shoots to Hilda’s hair, as well, fingers splayed and palpating a few different pressure points, and Hilda moans again. Hilda’s other hand is now at Mary’s hip, squeezing and digging in there with her fingernails. “You might not want to prove anything, but you certainly want to fix things.”

Even as Hilda’s talking, Mary’s fingers are finding ridges she can push and pull into alignment. She abruptly stops herself, says,

“Why should I? You’ve been nothing but antagonistic toward me. I know that you know I’m like you but not like you. And I also know that you’ve asserted this with your body—brushing against me, throwing me aside, aggressive but hidden. Oh Miss Spellman. You’ve made your point.” Mary releases her, takes a step back, still looks into her eyes. “Would you really like to meet in the proverbial parking lot and catch these hands, Miss Spellman? Because that’s what your actions have been telling me.”

Hilda snorts.

Hilda is flushed and disheveled and angry and turned on, and still she snorts. And then she says,

“That’s not what my actions have been telling you, and you know it, you absolute ninny.”

Mary stares at her from her statuesque and ridiculous pose two paces off. Hilda watches and tries not to laugh as Mary shakes out her luxurious mane and pauses with her head cocked, seemingly contemplating the whole situation and seemingly so befuddled by it. Hilda snorts again. Of all the myriad, horrific things she’d imagined Mary to be, at her mercy had not been one of them. She’d never have thought she’d have the upper hand, and yet here they were, Mary confused and waiting for Hilda to say something, do something.

“I suppose you never played school games,” Hilda says. She says it as an open question, but Mary does not understand that nuance. Instead, Mary’s eyes glint and gleam and question, and Hilda continues, “The kind of proto-contact sport like duck-duck-goose or red rover or flag football where you had an excuse to touch the person you wanted to touch for reasons you didn’t understand at the time.” Mary watches her avidly, still from two paces or so away. Hilda doesn’t understand exactly what the intricacies here are because she cannot penetrate Mary’s mind, and that in itself is troublesome, but she knows enough and that enough is off that she says, “There probably would’ve been better ways to gain your attention.”

Mary persists in her ridiculous, statuesque pose for a second and then says,

“I doubt that. I’m more socially incompetent than any of us might prefer.”

There is a taut silence in the close, humid parlor and another peal of thunder outside. 

Hilda says finally,

“Well. Are we doing this or not, then?”

Mary blinks at her between lightning flashes, and Mary says,

“Unless you can think of a reason not to.”

Hilda is emboldened by the electricity of the night. She says,

“I can think of a lot of things. I can also not think of a lot of things.”

Mary nods.


End file.
